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Dallas Love Field held a memorial service Tuesday morning to remember the victims of Sept. 11, 2001. (Published Tuesday, Sep 11, 2012)

Updated at 12:08 PM CST on Tuesday, Sep 11, 2012

Travelers and employees at Dallas' Love Field paused Tuesday to remember the victims of Sept. 11, 2001.

As air travelers Larry and Caryn Patterson boarded their flight to Las Vegas at Love Field, they can’t help but to think of the passengers who never made it to their destination 11 years ago.

“You think back to what you were doing that day. You relive the activities, events, and tragedy. You still think of the families and you wish them well, and the firefighters who did what they had to do,” said Larry Patterson.

“It’s very important we never forget the horrific events of 9-11. It really changed us as a nation,” said TSA Federal Security Director Amy Williams.

At 8:46 a.m. Tuesday morning, everything at the airport came to a stop, including security and construction. Everyone paused to remember the exact moment American Airlines Flight 11 hit the first tower. The Boston to Los Angeles flight was hijacked by five terrorists and was flown into the World Trade Center's north tower, killing everyone on board.

“I’m sorry people had to suffer through that,” said passenger Caryn Patterson.

TSA leaders said they’ve learned from the tragedy of Sept. 11 and made changes to security to prevent another similar attack from ever happening again.

“The whole body imager, we’re really able to do a better detection. We can not only detect metal, but other anomalies,” said Williams.

Williams adds intelligence and a new screening system is now allowing security to assess the risk of individual travelers, instead of using a cooking cutter approach. Although Williams wants passengers to know that the TSA believes a threat still exists.

“Remain vigilant and take this day to honor those who lost their lives in those horrific events,” said Williams.